• Geographic Table
• Demographic Page
• Website Maps
• General websites
• Bibliography of Atlases
• Russia/America: Frontiers and Imperial peripheries

You might check the map collection in the bookstore to see if you can put your hands on a personal copy of a good, large-scale map of Eurasia or a good reference atlas, generally useful just to read the newspaper with understanding.

For a fresh look at the meaning of maps, look at this website =
“The Map as Cultural Assumption”

For quick reference, here are 5 maps of universal use to the historian (starting with #1 for the Russian historian) =
#1(Russia now) || #2(Eurasia outline) || #3(Eurasia, more graphic) || #4a(N.hemisphere snow now) || #4b(snow at peak) || #5(global tetrahedral)

GEOGRAPHIC TABLE::
Russia and its "Near Abroad":
HIGH POINTS, LOW POOLS, THE WATERS THAT
FLOW BETWEEN, CONCENTRATED POPULATIONS (CITIES),
& OTHER FEATURES

The central organizational principle, defining each row at column 2, is the river. The table features 27 Eurasian river systems, their origins, course and destinations. On any row, from column one (far left) to column five (far right), you take an imaginary river trip from highlands to various seas, from the high points to the low pools.

The six most important high points, with their most important watersheds (entered here roughly SW to NE) are =

    1) Caucasus Mts. (Mt. El'brus = 18,500)
             GO Kuban and Kura rivers
    2) Valdai Hills (1138 ft., this the highest spot in European Russia)
             GO Dnepr [Dnieper, rises at 830 ft above sea level], Vistula, Western.Dvina, Velikaia, Volkhov, and Volga [730 ft.]
    3) Ural Mts. (Urals; 6214 ft maximum height in the far north, but few points above 4000 ft.
                  The Trans-Siberian Railroad crosses the Urals at 1345 ft. Mt. Tom in the Coburg Hills = 3100 ft.)
             GO [Pechora], Kama, Ufa, Ural, Northern Dvina, Tobol, and Tavda rivers
    4) Tien Shan Mts., dividing China's Sinkiang border from Central Asia (Mt.Communism = 24,600)
            GO Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Ili rivers
    5) Lake Baikal (6365 ft. deep) and the western slopes of its high west bank
            GO Angara and Lena rivers
    6) Altai highlands of western Mongolia (15,266 at highest peak)
            GO Ob - Irtysh [not unlike forked Missouri - Mississippi], Yenisei, Amur, Argun and Shilka rivers

Column 4 indicates the destination of rivers and other significant regional features. Column 5 is alpha-coded to identify the seven major low pools =

(A) Black Sea
(B) Caspian Sea
(C) Baltic Sea
(D) White Sea
(E) Aral Sea
(F) Arctic Sea [or Arctic Ocean], and
(G) Sea of Okhotsk

The first four low pools (A-D) are the destinations of what we conventionally call "European" rivers, the last three (E-G) are "Asian" (Siberian). Notice how a number is attached to each alpha-coded drainage region to specify individual river systems. E.g., The great Volga River is in the (B) Caspian Sea region and is coded "B1".

Column 5 might contain two hypertext "icons", [map] and [MAP]. These  indicate maps to which you might hop, better to situate yourself. The first, [map], hops to an outline map of the region of the given low pool. The second, [MAP], hops to a standard map of "Russia/USSR/Russia" as a whole. These maps facilitate imaginary river trips, a good way to gain mastery over this river-centered table of Russian and northern Asian geography.

* NB! two mountain cities [ bracketed in column 1], and seven coastal cities in column 4

MAP WEBSITES

• UNO maps
• UO map (atlas) website
• Global tetrahedral projection
• North-polar projections of Cold War globe
• World soil map
• Eurasia, growth of "civilization" to 200 BC
• North, East and South Asia
• Eurasia (without far-western Europe) [CIA]
• Excellent Free Blank Map of Eurasia, showing nation-state borders
• Fallingrain Regions of Russia | Here is a post 1993 list of administrative regions
• 1914:Russian Administrative regions
• One of the best collections of maps of Russian-centered Eurasia
• A set of historical maps of Russia and Eurasia, with places labeled
• Russia, geo-physical and political (with rail lines)
• BIG MAP OF RUSSIA; Ditto
• Snow Today on the Northern Hemisphere
• Permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere
• Permafrost in Russia
• Vegetative zones of Russia
• 2002:Caspian Sea Pipelines
• Petroleum deposits and pipelines (dated)
• Russian national parks and preserves
• Areas of key environmental problems (Adobe); Ditto (not Adobe)
• Area Studies, country by country

• USA at night
  

  

 Websites

• Library of Congress Country Studies
• List of Russian Webservers

<>Atlas zur Zeitgeschichte : Europa im 20. Jahrhundert
<>Cassell atlas of world history | On 20^th-c world, see scts 5.05, 5.06, & all of sct 6
<>Collins atlas of twentieth century world history
<>Collins atlas of world history
<>Hammond atlas of the 20th century
<>National Geographic atlas of world history | On 20^th century world, see pp. 302-79
<>Natkiel, Richard, et al. Atlas of the 20th century
<>Oxford illustrated history of modern Europe. Edited by T.C.W. Blanning
<>Palmowski, Jan. A dictionary of twentieth-century world history
<>Rand McNally Historical atlas of the world
<>Times atlas of European history | On 20^th century world, see pp. 164-91
<>Times atlas of the 20th century
<>Times atlas of world history
<>Wheatcroft, Andrew. The world atlas of revolutions

Russia and Eastern Europe

Landscape Atlas of the USSR | Maps #6-30 = close-ups of strategic points in Western European Russia, from Baltic shores, over the central plains, down to the Black Sea Coast. See the good outline maps, pp. 19 and 37